The present invention relates to new oxide structures containing octahedral molybdenum and tetrahedral phosphorous.
Structured, microporous oxides are utilized in a multitude of catalytic and sorption/separation processes in the petroleum and petrochemical industry. The most widely known group of materials that falls within this category are the aluminosilicate zeolites, see Breck, D. W., "Zeolite Molecular Sieves"; Wiley: New York, 1984. A second generation of molecular sieves, high-silica zeolites, were later introduced through the use or organic cations instead of alkali-metal bases traditionally used in zeolite synthesis gels, see Barrer, R. M., Denny, P. J., J. Chem. Soc. 1961, 971, and Kerr, G. T., Kokotailo, G., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1961, 83, 4675. Recently, a major group of new microporous materials, the aluminophosphates, and related silicoaluminophosphates and metalloaluminophosphates, were also synthesized using organic templating species, see Wilson, S. T., Lok, B. M., Messina, C. A., Cannan, T. R., Flanigen, E. M., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1982, 104, 1147, Lok, B. M., Messina, C. A., Patton, R. L., Gajek, R. T., Cannan, T. R.; Flanigen, E. M., U.S. Pat. No. 4,440,871, 1984, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1984. 106, 6092, and Messina, C. A., Lok, B. M.; Flanigen, E. M., U.S. Pat. No. 4,544,143, 1985. This latter group of materials demonstrates two very important factors concerning molecular sieves: (a) that three-dimensional microporous materials can crystallize from highly acidic reaction media and (b) components other than silicon and aluminum can be used to generate porous oxide frameworks (in this case, phosphorous, and a variety of different metals).
The present invention illustrates these points through the synthesis of new compositions containing molybdenum and phosphorous as lattice constituents.
The compositions of the present invention are related to zeolites and other microporous materials because they have channels or interlayer spaces capable of reversibly sorbing molecules. Furthermore, due to the high oxidation state of the molybdenum component, it is possible to carry out selective oxidations within the pores of the materials.